Acute hunger leads to self-protective behaviour, where people keep resources to themselves. However, little is known about whether acute hunger influences individuals' inclination to engage in unethical behaviour for direct monetary gains. Past research in moral psychology has found that people are less likely to cheat for monetary than non-monetary gains. Integrating research on scarcity into the study of unethical economic behaviour, we predicted that acute hunger increases cheating for monetary gains. We further predicted that this effect is moderated by childhood socioeconomic status, trait self-control, and moral identity. We tested these predictions in a well-powered laboratory experiment where we manipulated acute physiological hunger as indexed by blood glucose levels and obtained a validated behavioural measure of cheating for direct monetary gains. Contrary to our predictions, our results show that acute physiological hunger as indexed by blood glucose levels does not increase (or decrease) the propensity to engage in unethical economic behaviour and that neither childhood socioeconomic status nor trait self-control or moral identity moderate this relationship. These findings advance scientific understanding of whether experiences of scarcity shape moral judgment and decision-making.

急性饥饿导致自我保护行为，人们将资源留给自己。然而，对于急性饥饿是否会影响个人为了直接的金钱利益而从事不道德行为的倾向，我们知之甚少。过去的道德心理学研究发现，人们为了金钱而不是非金钱收益而作弊的可能性更小。将稀缺性研究与不道德的经济行为研究相结合，我们预测，严重的饥饿会增加对金钱收益的欺骗行为。我们进一步预测，这种影响会受到童年社会经济地位、特质自我控制和道德认同的影响。我们在一个功能强大的实验室实验中测试了这些预测，在该实验中，我们操纵了以血糖水平为指标的急性生理饥饿，并获得了经过验证的作弊行为衡量标准，以获取直接的金钱收益。与我们的预测相反，我们的结果表明，以血糖水平为指标的急性生理饥饿不会增加（或减少）从事不道德经济行为的倾向，而且童年的社会经济地位、自我控制或道德认同的特质都不会调节这种关系. 这些发现促进了对稀缺经验是否影响道德判断和决策的科学理解。我们的研究结果表明，以血糖水平为指标的急性生理饥饿不会增加（或减少）从事不道德经济行为的倾向，而且童年的社会经济地位、自我控制特质或道德认同都不会缓和这种关系。这些发现促进了对稀缺经验是否影响道德判断和决策的科学理解。我们的研究结果表明，以血糖水平为指标的急性生理饥饿不会增加（或减少）从事不道德经济行为的倾向，而且童年的社会经济地位、自我控制特质或道德认同都不会缓和这种关系。这些发现促进了对稀缺经验是否影响道德判断和决策的科学理解。